Bloom, Harold

Figures of Capable Imagination

ISBN: 0816492778
New York, NY: The Seabury Press, 1976. First Edition, Advance Review Copy. Hardcover. “This book of practical criticism exemplifies the principles set forth in Bloom’s tetralogy of “antithetical criticism”: The Anxiety of Influence, A Map of Misreading, Kabbalah and Criticism, and Poetry and Repression. Figures of Capable Imagination conducts a unified inquiry into the Romantic literary tradition, and begins with three chapters showing the reactions to influence-anxieties by Coleridge, Pater, and Emerson, three precursors of contemporary sensibility. The next triad of chapters focuses on Emersonian tradition in ‘the native strain’ of American poetry, and culminates in Wallace Stevens, the central figure of capable imagination for this book” (from front-&-back Flap copy). Harold Bloom (1930-2014) is, of course, a specialist in “unified inquiries,” — it’s what he built his reputation on. The fruit of these efforts, for Bloom, was respect, renown, and infamy: and an avalanche of each, experienced simultaneously. Your Devoted VP-of-Operations here at Third Mind Books — the author of this curation and devoted Emersonian — disagrees with Bloom on the basic principle (or idea) that the great American Transcendentalist, Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) had any “anxieties” about influence, at all. This was, we’d do well to remember, the man who encouraged himself (and others) to “leave all books, and write a mind.” I will afford Bloom some grace, however, for he’s correct that Emerson did presage what he [Bloom] called “contemporary sensibility” in 1976, the year of this book’s publication. The “contemporary sensibility” Bloom here speaks of likely has more in common with what, today we’d more accurately associate with the visionary enthusiasms of Mid-Century American Literature (writ large). As Modernism, — contrary to popular estimation, — didn’t really “stop” at some arbitrary point; didn’t ‘limp-wristedly’ “surrender” (or “give itself over”) to the literary-philosophical precepts now associated with “postmodernism.” The courageous, ambitious, and ultimately heroic authorial sensibility Bloom rightly associates with Romanticism was still perfuming the air in 1976, when Bloom published this book. Therefore, Bloom’s categorical assignation should be considered in the light of its times: in the fading sunset of Beat literary enthusiasm. In addition to treatments on the aforementioned figures, Bloom focuses his unrelenting lens on the minds, works, & lives of other buried giants. Among them are John Ashbery (1927-2017); Geoffrey Hill (1932-2016); John Hollander (1929-2013); Mark Strand (1934-2014) & W.S. Merwin (1927-2019). Notable, certainly, is the fact that each of these poets are contributing inheritors to the tradition of Literary Modernism. They are “successors,” rightly considered, but innovative successors: writers who “aspired to something beyond what they inherited,” — like the great Jazz trumpeter, Ornette Coleman once sagely insisted. Hardcover in unclipped dust-jacket: First Edition, though not explicated as such on copyright page; Advance Review Copy, as indicated by presence of the tipped-in review slip described above. From the collection of Laurence Goldstein (1943-2023), a renowned American author, film critic, poet, editor & academician here at the University of Michigan. A Bloom classic in its very rarest contemporary form, enriched with relevant ephemera & distinguished provenance. In very fine condition with only minute-to-mild shelf-wear, rubbing & bumping to fine-edges & corners of front, back covers & spine-edge, otherwise clean. Dust-jacket in stroong near fine condition with only mild-to-moderate shelf-wear, light bumping, rubbing & a few mute or otherwise contained exhibits of chipping & fraying to fine-edges & corners of front, back covers & spine-edge at select locales; mild, since-flattened closed tear to top right-hand corner of back cover; otherwise clean. Very Fine / Very Good. [Item #6865]

Price: $35.00